A mildly enjoyable if open-ended romp.
The author of Go the Fuck to Sleep (2011) joins Zweibel to craft a (somewhat) more conventional tale, featuring a seventh-grader who gets unexpected help navigating middle school rapids.
In a plotline wrought from standard-issue tropes, from stepdad issues and feeling left behind by peers to poop references and vomiting all over a crush, the authors do get in some memorable twists. Assigned to write a letter to a historical figure, Franklin “Ike” Saturday pens a whiny missive to his namesake that gets mailed—and, unexpectedly, elicits a response from the great man himself. Purportedly, anyway: “old” Franklin’s spiteful reference to Jefferson as “a slave owner with a multitude of unaccounted-for progeny” and later boast of “lamps that represent the cutting edge in whale oil–fueled technology” sound strangely modern. In any case, the two Franklins find common ground in a regular, if irregularly capitalized, correspondence (“I’m very Grateful, and anything I can do to help you Screw Over Jefferson and the rest of those clowns, just let me know”). Meanwhile, against all odds, Ike hits it off with dazzling classmate Claire Wanzandae, particularly after the vomiting incident (caused by a boneheaded effort to impress by chugging beer) triggers an exchange of heartfelt letters of apology. Sending old Franklin modern documents that threaten to derail the American Revolution will definitely be harder to fix…stay tuned. The episode’s coyly blacked-out title is no more than a marketing ploy, as the correspondence is generally an amicable one.
A mildly enjoyable if open-ended romp. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4847-1304-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Cinematic, over-the-top decadence, a tense race against time, and lessons on what’s truly valuable.
A reward of $5,000,000 almost ruins everything for two seventh graders.
On a class trip to New York City, Felix and Benji find a wallet belonging to social media billionaire Laura Friendly. Benji, a well-off, chaotic kid with learning disabilities, swipes $20 from the wallet before they send it back to its owner. Felix, a poor, shy, rule-follower, reluctantly consents. So when Laura Friendly herself arrives to give them a reward for the returned wallet, she’s annoyed. To teach her larcenous helpers a lesson, Laura offers them a deal: a $20,000 college scholarship or slightly over $5 million cash—but with strings attached. The boys must spend all the money in 30 days, with legal stipulations preventing them from giving anything away, investing, or telling anyone about it. The glorious windfall quickly grows to become a chore and then a torment as the boys appear increasingly selfish and irresponsible to the adults in their lives. They rent luxury cars, hire a (wonderful) philosophy undergrad as a chauffeur, take their families to Disney World, and spend thousands on in-app game purchases. Yet, surrounded by hedonistically described piles of loot and filthy lucre, the boys long for simpler fundamentals. The absorbing spending spree reads like a fun family film, gleefully stuffed with the very opulence it warns against. Major characters are White.
Cinematic, over-the-top decadence, a tense race against time, and lessons on what’s truly valuable. (mathematical explanations) (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-17525-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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